


Mission: Failed

by laissemoidanser



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Overwatch - Freeform, Post-Fall of Overwatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 04:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13310883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laissemoidanser/pseuds/laissemoidanser
Summary: A shadow blocked the sunlight above him. He heard footsteps on the roof. Gathering the last of his strength, he reached for his rifle. The shadow slipped from the roof, followed the stairs down, right to the place of his hiding. His visor didn’t register any shape, only a black clot of smoke and a white mask looming in the air. A hoarse eerie laughter filled the veranda, echoing off the walls. The Reaper assumed a physical form, stepped out of the black smoke towards his enemy, two deadly shotguns aimed right at the soldier’s face.“Death comes,” he proclaimed, and the soldier straightened his shoulders, ready to accept his death right here and now.





	Mission: Failed

**Author's Note:**

> I think I might be falling into Reaper76 hell...

 

***

 

Soldier-76 was trudging away from the battlefield, leaning against the wall with one hand, while dragging the heavy pulse rifle in the other. A deafening explosion behind startled him, made him look back. Some six hundred feet away a violent battle for the payload was in full swing. Things had been going so smoothly, he’d guided his team almost to the final checkpoint without any hindrances or unnecessary delays. But the enemy ambushed them in a most treacherous manner at the very end of the way, and now their mission was on the verge of failure.

 

He turned away and shook his head. Limping, he made his way down a set of stairs and disappeared in the shade of an abandoned veranda. He intended to go around the action scene and get to the enemy turret from the other side, but the strength was draining out of him so very swiftly. He leaned his back against the cold wall, slumped down onto the floor, losing his grip on the rifle.

 

Just one quick breath.

 

With shaking hands he fumbled for the last biotic emitter on his belt. He unclasped the emitter, shook it, but it seemed to be defective, charging up way too slowly. The soldier let out an exasperated sigh, raised his head up to where the sunlight was filtering through the cracks in the old wooden roof.

 

“Not a young man anymore,” he wearily deduced.

 

The emitter slipped out from his weakened fingers rolling across the floor with a loud clang.

 

Suddenly a shadow blocked the sunlight above him. He heard footsteps on the roof of the veranda. Gathering the last of his strength, he reached for his rifle. The shadow slipped from the roof, followed the stairs down, right to the place of his hiding. His visor didn’t register any shape, only a black clot of smoke and a white mask looming in the air. A hoarse eerie laughter filled the veranda, echoing off the walls. The Reaper assumed a physical form, stepped out of the black smoke towards his enemy, two deadly shotguns aimed right at the soldier’s face.

 

“Death comes,” he proclaimed, and the soldier straightened his shoulders, ready to accept his death right here and now.

 

However, two deafening shots weren’t following.

 

Instead, he heard a quiet, choked out _“Jack?”_

 

Reaper's voice no longer sounded like a stentorian eerie echo, it was normal, human. The soldier had already heard that voice before; he knew it well, too well. That voice deprived his dreams of peace and had been haunting him all his life. Ever since he lost any track _of him_.... Ever since he lost himself...

 

“Reyes??” Jack Morrison growled, resolutely aiming his rifle at the cloaked figure.

 

However, Reyes was much faster and in the following moment Morrison was hopelessly pinned against the wall. The sheer force of the blow nearly knocked him out, sent his rifle flying somewhere towards the opposite wall of the veranda. All Morrison could do was squirm angrily under the press of the clawed gloves in a weak attempt to wriggle his way out of Reyes' iron grip. Pathetic. He was helpless.

 

“What are you waiting for?” he hissed, feeling those claws squeeze his throat. Reyes could have snapped his neck easily, in one slightest move, could have dealt with him in a split second. “What are you waiting for, you idiot? You got what you wanted. Do it…”

 

“I cannot believe my eyes,” instead of hatred there was confusion, astonishment in Reyes’ voice.

 

Morrison seized any attempts of resistance, went limp in Reyes’s hands, peering through the slits on the mask where eyes were supposed to be, but seeing nothing there, only blackness.

 

“You're wounded,” Reyes inferred. He glanced in the direction of the emitter, forgotten on the floor few feet away, then turned his "gaze" back to Jack before carefully releasing him and rising to his feet. Jack didn’t try to fight him anymore. There was no strength left in him. At least that was what he was internally telling himself, trying to justify the unexpected lack of desire to annihilate the hated figure clad in black.

 

He didn’t stir when Reyes leaned down to him again with the emitter clasped in his hand. The indicator on it showed that it was charged at last. In one deft movement, the deadly claws tore his jacket open, revealing a deep wound on his side. The turret got him good. Morrison clenched his teeth and groaned in pain, but then the biotic field was activated around him, and the profound pain began to subside. He sighed in relief, his shoulders relaxed but tensed up again when the claws slid over his newly healed skin. Now that he knew who was behind the mask, the touch didn’t feel all that unpleasant.

 

“That's much better, isn’t it?” Reyes asked warily.

 

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. Still breathing heavily, he kept his eyes trained on the white mask looming over him like a spiteful mockery of fate. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he grabbed a hold of it, sticking his fingers through the eye slits, and tore it off the face of its owner.

 

Reyes recoiled from him like a scalded cat. He covered his face with the palm of his hand and turned away, intending to flee, transforming into black smoke once again.

 

“Gabriel?” Morrison called to him.

 

Reyes froze in place, still trying to dissolve into the air, hide away, sink into the ground, disappear anywhere: only for Jack to never see him _like that_. But Jack got a firm hold of the hem of his cloak and wasn’t letting him go.

 

“Gabriel, look at me,” he said quietly, and Reyes couldn’t resist the sound of his voice, so familiar and gentle. When he turned around, Jack was taking off his visor. And then those piercing blue eyes were gazing up at him, searching, trapping him. The eyes he fell in love with from the very first day of their acquaintance, an eternity ago, and loved still, more than anything in the world.

 

“I'm sorry,” he said, dropping his gaze to the floor. “You've grown old. But you are still the same as I remember you. _Pretty_. I'm just a pathetic shadow of the past, Jack. I'm cursed... and this face ...”

 

“In that case, it's good that I don’t see shit without the damn visor,” Morrison said, chuckling.

 

Partly, he was being sly. He could see what Gabriel had turned into. His half-rotten skin marred with scars, eyes glowing ghostly scarlet, the lack of human in him. However, behind that mask of death and decay, one thing he saw for sure – the man standing before him was _his Gabriel_. The one he remembered, the one he loved. Perhaps, his looks had changed beyond recognition, perhaps he’d gone too far in his experiments, in his self-destructive hatred. But it was him. Real. Alive.

 

“What's become of _us_ , uh, Gabriel?  How did we come to this?”

 

“Jack. We can’t bring back the past. Let me go. Now that you know what I've become, you better strike me out of your life for good.”

 

“Now that I know that you're alive?” Jack pulled at his cloak violently, forcing Reyes to fall to his knees in front of him. The man guiltily lowered his eyes, avoiding Jack’s prying eyes. Now he was completely defenseless too.

 

“You see, I have long been dead... Like you ... “

 

Jack grabbed him by the collar of his cloak and pulled him closer. A fierce battle of contradictions was taking place in his head and the sounds of the real battle echoed it somewhere not far from the veranda. Until this moment, he would have never believed that he might find himself in this situation yet again. Just like it used to be an eternity ago. Bullets flying all around him and the love of his life in his arms. He clutched at the folds of the black cloak, staring greedily into those scarlet eyes.

 

“I can’t tell,” he growled, shaking Reyes with every word. “If I hate you or...?”

 

“Or…?” Reyes asked quietly, chuckling gently, and that chuckle was so characteristic and familiar, _so Reyes,_ that Jack couldn’t help but chuckle too.

 

“I missed you so much, man...,” he managed to blurt out before Gabriel covered both his hands with his own, leaning to him. Without a second's hesitation, Jack closed the last inches of distance between them, between the abyss of hatred, resentment and eternal loneliness, and slammed his lips into his. This kiss felt so different and strange, but, at the same time, it was just like he pictured in his memories. Hot...or ice-cold, he could no longer tell for sure, but the infinite hollow emptiness in his chest was suddenly shrinking, rapidly filling up with blooming warmth. Everything changed, yet everything remained the same between them, and Jack's body was trembling with anticipation just the same beneath those claws as it used to tremble beneath the caring touch of Gabriel’s hands. Reyes cupped his face, carefully taking the initiative, daring to give their kiss a new meaning.

 

A distant voice came from the now suspiciously quiet battle site.

 

_“Hey, Captain!! Where are you at?? Get your ass here! Who’s gonna check the perimeter?!”_

 

Jack broke the kiss, instinctively reaching for his rifle.

 

“My team needs me,” he muttered, feeling his cheeks burning hotly (was this still even possible??) and his legs refusing to obey.

 

Gabriel deftly picked him up, lifting him slightly, as he sat on the floor, swapping their positions. He now had Jack in his lap and, judging by how boldly his hands were exploring Jack's body, he had completely different plans in mind for the further outcome of the mission. Jack discovered that he didn’t have a slightest desire to object.

 

“ _I_ need you, Jack. _I_ need you…”

 

And Jack stayed in the warm embrace of death.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
